Category Archives: Current Events

Jul 01 2010
4 Comments
Books, Current Events, Popular Culture, Teaching

Florida School District Bans Bible Distribution on Religious Freedom Day

From the Orlando Sentinel:

Maitland-based Liberty Counsel filed a lawsuit Thursday to overturn a ban on Bible distribution on public school campuses in Collier County. According to the Liberty Counsel, the Collier County School Board allowed World Changers to distribute free Bibles to students during off-school hours on Religious Freedom Day, but now the school officials claim that Bibles do not provide any educational benefit to the students and the distribution should stop.

The Collier County School District policy specifically allows the distribution of literature by nonprofit organizations, but only with the approval of the superintendent and the Community Request Committee, whose members are appointed by the superintendent. Approval was denied to World Changers, despite the fact that its distribution included a disclaimer of any school endorsement or sponsorship and that receiving a Bible was purely voluntary.

“Bibles do not provide any educational benefit to the students” … seriously?

Even those who don’t believe the Bible shares truth have to admit that it is a one-of-a-kind book that has shaped history in a profound way.

What other piece of literature was written over the course of 2,500 years in multiple languages spanning multiple continents? What other piece of literature can claim such a diversity of authors? From poets to paupers, prophets to philosophers, slaves to kings, the defeated to the victorious – the diversity of the Bible’s authors is astounding! What other piece of literature can make that claim?

What other piece of literature can claim to have been the first printed on a printing press (it’s actually what led to the invention of the printing press)? Think about it – the Bible was the first edition of any book – anywhere! And what other piece of literature can claim the title ‘bestseller of all time’?

What other piece of literature can claim to have been the first to be translated into another language (Hebrew to Greek)? The Bible has since been translated into over 2,500 others covering 90% of those known in the world – what other book comes close?

What other piece of literature has been attacked as the Bible? From the Romans to the Communists to Islamics to atheists – the Bible has been outlawed, burned, banned, and restricted, but it’s still around. What other book has endured such attacks?

I haven’t even mentioned the Bible’s impact on our modern-day legal system, classic literature and art, science, the educational system and academia, philosophy, and … the list goes on and on.

How could any serious academic living today teach there’s no educational value in studying this unique book? To write the Bible off with the argument that it “does not provide any educational benefit to the students” … that’s silly even if you’re not a believer.

Dear Collier County school officials who made this decision: please rethink your public statement, and do a little research on this topic.

Either 1) you simply don’t like what the Bible teaches and don’t want children under your care exposed to its ideas (which would also make your statement a dishonest one), or 2) you’re ignorant of the rich heritage and history surrounding the Christian scriptures.

Either way this was a bad decision.

For more fun facts on the Bible, I recommend picking up this book.
Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Jun 28 2010
4 Comments
Campus Ministry, Current Events

Ruling in Supreme Court Case Could Have Negative Implications for Campus Ministry

Regular readers may remember two posts I made here and here regarding a Supreme Court case that could have major implications for traditional church-based campus ministries.

Today, the verdict is in, and the ruling didn’t go in the favor of religious organizations.

From the story posted on InsideHigherEd.com:

Anti-Bias Rules Upheld

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court ruled today, 5-to-4, that public colleges and universities may require religious organizations seeking recognition or funds as campus groups to comply with anti-bias rules.

The ruling came in a lawsuit by the Christian Legal Society, which challenged the anti-bias rules of the Hastings College of Law of the University of California. The Hastings policy bars discrimination based on sexual orientation and the Christian Legal Society bars gay people from becoming members. Hastings has argued – with backing from many in public higher education – that state universities have an obligation to adhere to strict anti-bias rules. But the Christian Legal Society – with backing from many religious groups – has argued that forcing it to comply with anti-bias rules amounts to infringing on its First Amendment right to freedom of religion.

The Supreme Court’s decision, by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, found that the law school’s policy was “a reasonable, viewpoint-neutral condition on access” that did not raise First Amendment issues in the way the Christian Legal Society argued.

The opinion explicitly rejects the argument of the Christian Legal Society that a public university has no business limiting its ability to be recognized and to apply its own rules to membership. “CLS’s analytical error lies in focusing on the benefits it must forgo while ignoring the interests of those it seeks to fence out: Exclusion, after all, has two sides,” the decision says. “Hastings, caught in the crossfire between a group’s desire to exclude and students’ demand for equal access, may reasonably draw a line in the sand permitting all organizations to express what they wish but no group to discriminate in membership.”

A dissent, by Justice Samuel Alito, blasted the decision, saying that it set a principle of “no freedom for expression that offends prevailing standards of political correctness in our country’s institutions of higher learning.”

Many public colleges and universities have anti-bias policies similar to those of Hastings, so a ruling for the Christian Legal Society would have forced changes at many institutions. The issue has been particularly intense at public law schools (where the Christian Legal Society has sought recognition) and at undergraduate institutions with Greek systems (when Christian fraternities have sought recognition). Some public colleges and universities – faced with legal threats by supporters of the Christian Legal Society – have changed their policies to exempt religious groups, and those institutions could conceivably now reconsider.

Read the full story here.

We’re not exactly sure what this will mean at most universities yet, but if there are any implications for traditional campus ministry at all they will most likely be negative.

Tagged , , , , , , , ,
May 17 2010
3 Comments
Church Planting, Current Events, Resources

Total U.S. Churches No Longer In Decline?

According to Stetzer & Bird, they’re not, and that’s great news! Stetzer & Bird report about 4,000 new churches are being planted in the U.S. each year while 3,500 are closing their doors.

From The Christian Post:

We often hear about churches closing their doors in the U.S. But some may be surprised to hear that the total number of churches is not in decline anymore.

An important shift happened in recent years, according to researchers Ed Stetzer and Warren Bird. After decades of net decline, more U.S. churches are being started each year than are being closed.

The credit largely goes to the recent increase in enthusiasm for church planting. Stetzer, who leads LifeWay Research, says church planting has become the “it” thing right now and the new evangelism … “[C]hurch planting is on the mind of North American Christians at unprecedented levels,” they write.

Despite the aggressive increase in church launches, a massive church planting phenomenon hasn’t happened yet and the co-authors are hoping to help Christians move past certain obstacles in order to orchestrate a viral movement.

That means, church planting must move from being a fad or “the next big thing” to a “passionate pursuit of the lost.”

Stetzer & Bird go on to address the hesitancy some have toward church planting:

There may be a hesitancy to having a church planting emphasis because “the thinking seems to be [that] there’s a church on every corner and most of them are empty,” state the authors, who have led and studied church plants.

But research shows that new churches fare better when it comes to drawing new people and they have a higher ratio of conversions and baptisms compared to more established churches, according to Viral Churches.

“The only way to increase the number of Christians in a city is to plant thousands of new churches,” said Tim Keller, founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, according to Viral Churches.

Growing churches make up only about 20 percent of all U.S. churches today. The rest have reached a plateau or are declining.

“Studies have shown that, in general, churches typically plateau in attendance by their fifteenth year, and by about thirty-five years they begin having trouble replacing the members they lose,” the book states. “[A]mong evangelical churches, those under three years old will win ten people to Christ per year for every hundred members. Those three to fifteen years old will win five people per year for every hundred members. After age fifteen the number drops to three per year.”

Read the full story here.

I’m all for church planting and am thrilled about the successes, but is it really our only – as in, singular – hope?

Does a church’s “age” really determine whether or not the people making it up can tell others about Jesus?

I’m more inclined to believe whether a church is reaching people or not has more to do with leadership than age. Perhaps church plants are generally led better than older churches? Perhaps they have a vision coupled with the passion to achieve it and that’s often missing from older churches?

Could it be that the results of this study tell us every bit as much about the benefits of solid leadership as they do the benefits of church planting? Possibly so …

Anyway, I’m glad to hear this – the news is good. 🙂

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
← Older posts
Newer posts →